I was insulted the other day. A senior director on the board of trustees of a high-rise building said I lacked technical education and experience. For a person who is an engineering graduate and has been in business for almost 40 years, that sounded very much at least like an insult. It’s not the firstContinue reading “How to Deal with Insults”
Tag Archives: management
Competitive & Non-Competitive Priorities and How to Deal with Them
In several firms I’ve worked with, I couldn’t help but notice that supply chain managers would sometimes be engrossed with priorities regarding compliance to government-mandated occupational safety & health standards. They would have long meetings and spend much time on the nitty-gritties of reports to be filed and procedures to follow. But in the followingContinue reading “Competitive & Non-Competitive Priorities and How to Deal with Them”
DRP, Deployment and the Role of the Supply Chain Engineer
Distribution Resource Planning (DRP) was my first assignment as supply chain planner for a large consumer goods firm. It was the late 1980’s and Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP 2) was at the height of popularity in the corporate world. The company I was working for was embarking on integrating MRP 2 in anContinue reading “DRP, Deployment and the Role of the Supply Chain Engineer”
Balancing Unstoppable Production and Benefiting from It
I used to work in a flat glass factory. The flat glass factory I worked at used float technology. It starts with a furnace that melts raw materials such as silica (sand), soda ash, dolomite, and limestone. Molten glass flows from the furnace to a tin bath, a chamber of molten tin, in which theContinue reading “Balancing Unstoppable Production and Benefiting from It”
Four (4) Supply Chain Scenarios and What to Do When They Change
We don’t know when it’s going to rain. So, we build dams. Dams are reservoirs, inventories of fresh water. Having a reservoir assures an adequate supply of water to meet the continuous demand of communities. Supply chain managers face a myriad of challenges in their operations. But one can categorise some of these challenges whenContinue reading “Four (4) Supply Chain Scenarios and What to Do When They Change”
Bad Things Happen to Everyone
Asian airlines such as Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines, and ANA are known for their excellence in customer service. A lot of people love flying with these airlines. But thanks to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, these same airlines are experiencing their worst business slump in recent memory. No one wants to fly these airlines not becauseContinue reading “Bad Things Happen to Everyone”
We Need a Playbook and It’s the Last Thing We Need
Many enterprises and countries around the world have playbooks to deal with pandemics such as COVID-19. These range from ISO standards and those based on the United States’ Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA), Center of Disease Control & Prevention, and even the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USARMIID). But asContinue reading “We Need a Playbook and It’s the Last Thing We Need”
Why Weren’t We Ready for COVID-19 and How Should We Have Been?
The COVID-19 disease is the latest adversity to hit our world and it’s the worst yet. It also should be the last in how we deal with adversity because how we’ve been dealing with adversity has just been outright awful. COVID-19 started late December 2019 in China and had spread around the world threeContinue reading “Why Weren’t We Ready for COVID-19 and How Should We Have Been?”
How NOT to Manage a Crisis
My manager apologized for coming in late for the meeting. She came from her home at Marikina but got stuck in traffic because she couldn’t use the LRT-2 commuter train. The LRT-2 station nearest to her home has been closed since October when two (2) rectifier transformers tripped and caused a fire. (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/four-4-starting-points-getting-reliability-you-want-ellery-samuel-lim/) The LightContinue reading “How NOT to Manage a Crisis”
How to Avoid the Aggravation of Un-Available Items
If there’s one thing that ruins the productivity of your day, it’s when a needed item isn’t available. A wonderfully designed business may have skilled workers, state-of-the-art machinery, and a talented management team. But the business yields nothing if the needed items to run it aren’t there. Managers deal with challenges such as absent workers,Continue reading “How to Avoid the Aggravation of Un-Available Items”
Ellery's Essays 